Monster by Walter Dean Myers

what happened in the drugstore, but I’d rather not have it in my mind. The pictures of Mr. Nesbitt scare me. I think about him lying there knowing he was going to die. I wonder if it hurt much. I can see me at that moment, just when Mr. Nesbitt knew he was going to die, walking down the street trying to make my mind a blank screen.
    When I got back to the cell and changed my clothes, I had to mop the corridors with four other guys. We were all dressed in the orangejumpsuits they give you and the guards made us line up. The water was hot and soapy and had a strong smell of some kind of disinfectant. The mops were heavy and it was hot and I didn’t like doing it. Then I realized that the five guys doing the mopping must have all looked alike and I suddenly felt as if I couldn’t breathe. I tried to suck the air into my lungs, but all I got was the odor of the disinfectant and I started gagging.
    â€œYou vomit—you just got more to clean up!” the guard said.
    I held it in and kept swinging the big mop across the floor. To my right and left the other prisoners weredoing the same thing. On the floor there were big arcs of gray, dirty water and swirls of stinking, brown bubbles. I wanted to be away from this place so bad, away from this place, away from this place . I remembered Miss O’Brien saying that it was her job to make me different in the eyes of the jury, different from Bobo and Osvaldo and King. It was me, I thought as I tried not to throw up, that had wanted to be tough like them.
    Â 
    FADE IN: Four-way SPLIT-SCREEN MONTAGE: Three images alternate between shots of witnesses and defendants. We hear only 1 witness at a time, but the others are clearly still talking on other screens. In upper left screen is DETECTIVE WILLIAMS. Lower left is ALLEN FORBES, a City Clerk. Lower right is DR. JAMES MOODY, Medical Examiner. The upper right screen is sometimes black, sometimes a stark and startling white. Occasionally the images of those not speaking are replaced with images of KING or STEVE, and we get REACTION SHOTS.
    Â 
    FORBES
    Â 
    It was a registered gun. Our records show that Mr. Nesbitt applied for a license to have a gun on the premises in August of 1989. That permit was still in effect. The gun was licensed to him from that time.
    Â 
    VO (PETROCELLI)
    Â 
    So there was nothing unusual or illegal about the gun being in the drugstore? Is that correct, Mr. Forbes?
    Â 
    FORBES
    Â 
    Presumably he wanted it for the store. That is correct.
    Â 
    SWITCH TO: DETECTIVE WILLIAMS.
    Â 
    WILLIAMS
    Â 
    I arrived at the crime scene at 5:15. There was some merchandise on the floor of the drugstore in between the counters. The body of the victim was lying halfway…his legs were half sticking out from behind the counter. I looked around the counter and observed a middle-aged Black male of approximately 200 pounds. It was pretty clear that he was dead. There was an emergency medical crew there, and they were just packing it in when I arrived. I looked around the scene and saw the gun. A uniformed patrolman pointed it out to me. I didn’t know at the time if it was the gun that killed the victim or not. There wasn’t any way to tell without tests.
    Â 
    The cash register was open. The change was still in there, but no bills. Also, there were several cartons of cigarettes on the floor, and the clerk mentioned that several cartons of cigarettes were missing. We chalked the body, then had it turned.
    Â 
    VO (PETROCELLI)
    Â 
    What do you mean when you say you chalked the body?
    Â 
    WILLIAMS
    Â 
    That’s when you put a chalk mark around the perimeter of the body to show the position you found it in. We had photos taken, then we chalked the body so we could turn it over and see if there was any possible evidence beneath the victim. I didn’t see anything there. From the money being gone from the register, I figured it was a stickup and homicide. The guys from the Medical